ASUS R3 next-gen UMPC launched; ditches Windows for Linux

As UMPC manufacturers put their embarrassing early attempts behind them, it’s interesting to see what direction each takes as they refresh their model lines and try to cater for that elusive “mobile professional”. While Samsung caved to the QWERTY brigade and included a dinky thumb-keyboard, ASUS is standing proudly by their touchscreen-or-the-highway morals with their new R3.

Check out a launch video of the R3 after the cut

So there’s no keyboard, but you do get a far higher resolution screen (sized at 4.8-inches) than the R2H had as well as GPS from a dedicated launch button. There’s also the integrated webcam and fingerprint reader that made its predecessor so popular.

In a big step away from the official UMPC specification, the R3 runs Linux rather than a touchscreen-enabled version of Windows. This should mean better performance from hopefully power-careful hardware, although we’ll have to wait and see.